Music, Softly Played
by sporksareweird
Summary: When a woman leaves all of her possessions to Second Time Around, April falls in love with a beautiful music box. But this box holds a deep evil the likes of which the Turtles have never seen. They must uncover its secret before it claims one of their own


There were twelve boxes sitting along the side wall, far more than April had originally expected. When she had received the phone call from Michael Warren, the attorney in charge of the estate of the late Barbara Partridge, she had been excited. Brand new merchandise for her shop, Second Time Around, might lure back some of her regular customers that had recently grown disinterested in the same old things. She enthusiastically told Warren to drop the stuff off as soon as he could. When the lawyer had arrived twenty minutes later with a U Haul truck packed with old junk Barbara Partridge had refused to get rid of, April knew she was in for a long day. She had unpacked four of the refrigerator-sized cardboard boxes when she gave up and called the Turtles. This was far too much for her to handle on her own.

The guys arrived shortly thereafter, eager to help their friend. Michelangelo shouted "Ooh, shiny!" and made straight for the breakables, but Donatello headed him off at the pass. Raphael reprimanded his youngest brother in the form of a knock to the back of the head, and Leonardo just sighed and rolled his eyes. April laughed, content with her company.

The Turtles were nothing if not efficient, and roughly four hours later they were nearly finished. The last box lay open in the middle of the floor, its previously overflowing contents placed in their proper spots around the store. April held up the last artifact, the look on her face triumphant.

"This is the last one, guys!" She declared gleefully, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear with her free hand. "Good thing, too, because I am exhausted."

The redhead peered at the small object, admiring its painted details. The small ivory box was decorated with red and pink roses and its lid was fastened on with large silver hinges. The silver keyhole mounted on the front mocked her, however. No matter how hard she tried, she could not pry the thing open, and there was no sign of a key anywhere.

"Huh…" She puzzled. "I'm sure this is a music box, but I can't get it open."

Michelangelo took this opportunity to seize the precious box and shake it fiercely, holding it close to his ear.

"Sound like there's something inside, too!" He observed. Raphael snatched it back and delivered Mikey yet another slap to the back of his head, the eleventh so for that day, in fact..

"Don't do that, moron, you'll break it!" he barked, handing the box to Donatello. "Is there any way we can get this baby open without the key, Don?"

The brainy turtle examined it for a moment and then handed it back to April, shaking his head. "Not unless we want to smash it or pry off the hinges. Its old but surprisingly strong. We won't be opening this soon."

April's face fell. Most of the junk that Barbara Partridge had left to Second Time Around was just that. Junk. This piece was the most beautiful of all of it, more beautiful in fact than anything April had seen in a long time. "I wanted to hear which song it played," she said softly and wistfully.

"It's okay, April, I'm sure the key will turn up somewhere," Leo said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a small smile. A cuckoo clock went off suddenly. The little bird popped in and out nine times, alerting the Turtles to the late hour. "We had better get going, we have yet to patrol the city," Leo said, suddenly all business. Mikey groaned but the others acquiesced, heading toward a back door that led to the alley behind the shop.

"I'm gonna head up," April said, pointing toward the staircase that led to her apartment above the shop. "I'll see you guys later. Punch some bad guys for me."

The turtles left chuckling. They congregated in the darkness of the alley for a moment, attempting to plan a route for tonight's perambulation.

"I think we should go west," Rapheal stated, pointing in that direction. The sky there was a bit lighter than the rest, a hint that the sun had set not and hour and a half before.

His brothers turned to look, and Donnie and Mikey shrugged. Any direction was good for them, as long as they made it back in time for the truly awful late night horror movie on the Sci Fi channel. The younger turtles were both bad-movie buffs; they delighted in the campiness and bad acting that such films offered.

Leonardo, on the other hand, cared very much which direction they headed first. The leader was a stickler for maintaining a constant patrol route, and for the past two weeks they had begun the night heading south. He pointed this out to Raphael rather matter-of-factly, convinced that he made perfect sense.

Now, everyone knows that Leonardo's matter-of-factness gets on Raphael's nerves. He interprets the eldest turtle's tone of voice as smugness, and well, Raphael cannot stand Leo when he's being smug. Ever the one to rock the boat, Raph objected loudly and angrily.

"Does it even frickin' matter, Leo? Why do you always have to be right all of the time, huh? Why can't anyone else have ideas?"

Mike and Don rolled their eyes and leaned against the brick wall of April's building, rubbing their eyes in an exasperated fashion and resting their hands on their knees. Leo/Raph fights always lasted a long time and very often ended badly, with one of them storming off in a huff. Usually it was Raph. Okay, it was always Raph.

"We need to sustain a consistent patrol route, Raph!" He yelled, pointing a green finger in his red-masked brother's face. You see, Leonardo had recently been performing very well in the Dojo and was garnering much praise from Master Splinter. All of this praise had, unfortunately, gone to his head. At the moment, Leonardo thought very highly of himself and was convinced that all of his ideas were genius. Although this sounds a little out of character for the fearless leader, you must remember: everyone is guilty of arrogance at some point in time.

"What? Why? If we change up the route and go different places every night, there's a better chance we'll run into something and be able to help," Raph countered.

He had a point, which Leonardo (in his current state of "Wow, I'm really cool"-ness) did not want to admit. Instead, he drew himself up to his full height and got in Raphael's face.

"You know what? Too bad. I'm the leader, and we'll do as I say. And I say we go south." He stepped back and folded his arms triumphantly, as if he had just made the most logical argument in the history of arguments.

Raphael's reaction was violent: he reached for his sais. Not so much to stab his brother, of course, but to have a far more dangerous object than a finger to point in the blue-clad turtle's face.

"You self-righteous little--" But just what Leo was they never found out. The expression on the red-masked turtle's face went from anger to confusion as his three-fingered hands grasped nothing but air. He looked down to his belt, where his trusty weapons were usually kept, and found that they were missing. "Damn it, I must have left them inside." He glanced back at the door to the rear entrance to April's shop, which was still slightly ajar. "I'm gonna go get 'em."

"You do that," Leo said, his arms still folded across his chest.

Mike and Don looked up from their sixteenth game of rock-paper-scissors. "Lighten up, Leo, please?" the orange-banded turtle begged.

Leo looked at the looks on his other brothers' faces and realized he had gone too far. He became disgusted with himself, but still didn't want Raph to know that. Eh, power struggles…

"Just hurry up," Leo said to Raph's retreating back, though in a much nicer tone of voice than he had previously used. Raphael just flicked him off (as best as he could as he had only three fingers) and didn't even turn around.

* * *

Inside the shop, Raphael was still seething but attempting to be quiet about it. April was sleeping just above him, after all. He used his ninjitsu skills to the fullest as he crept about, looking on the floor and on tables for his precious sais. He finally found them lying on a small stand in the back of the shop, where all of the tables were huddled together rather closely. Now he remembered that he had taken them out of his belt to avoid knocking anything over. The moment he had them his mind instantly returned to Leo and his arrogance and he was furious again. He berated Leo in his mind, choosing the exact words that he would LOVE to say to him, most of which would earn him a good whack from Master Splinter if he ever uttered them in the aging rat's presence. He grew careless and bumped a table with his shell.

Raph instantly spun, hoping to save anything that was teetering dangerously. This quick action had proven costly, however, as he knocked another table in the process. He heard a soft _ping_, like something metal falling to the floor, and immediately investigated the sound. He found a small silver key lying next to his foot. He hadn't seen it before, but thought maybe it had been in a box he hadn't unpacked. On closer examination he realized that it was probably the key to the music box that April had wanted to open so badly.

Rather proud of himself for finding the lost key, Raphael walked back to the front of the store in search of the music box. He found it in a prominent spot on a table draped in red velvet, another indication that April was rather fond of it. To be sure that the key was in fact for the box, he placed in into the keyhole and turned. The metallic latch gave way and the lid popped open a crack. Curious, he lifted the lid all the way up, prompting the little mechanism inside to begin playing the song.

The tune tinkled forth, slow and hauntingly beautiful. Raphael listened for a while, a slight smile on his face. The smile slowly disappeared, however, to be replaced with a rather blank look. All sparkle the red-masked turtle's eyes had once held was gone, replaced by nothingness. He stood stock still, listening to the music box's tune in its entirety. Then he turned swiftly and walked stiffly toward the front door to the shop, the silver key still in his hand. He threw it open and left it completely ajar, melting into the night as though he had never been there.

It was not a windy night. The month was July and summer was in full swing. Not a breath of air stirred in the shop, open though the door may be. Despite this lack of wind, or any other force or movement for that matter, the lid of the small ivory music box slammed shut with a snap.


End file.
